Salt Lake City Launches New Web Presence with SLC.gov

June 26, 2018 11:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As part of a multi-year project to improve the service experience for
Salt Lake City residents and businesses, Salt Lake City formally
launched a new and improved city website today.

The new SLC.gov replaces
the City’s old website previously found at slcgov.com.
The new site was soft launched three weeks ago. The City’s website is
visited by thousands of residents and businesses each day and allows
users to access core municipal functions, including bill pay, business
licensing, and service requests.

The redesign project began more than a year ago and was led by the Salt
Lake City Mayor’s Office, the City’s Information Management Services
(IMS) Department, and Utah Interactive, a Salt Lake City-based online
services company which focusses on eGovernment initiatives, including
building and maintaining Utah.gov.

“As a government agency, Salt Lake City’s primary responsibility is to
ensure businesses and residents can access the information and services
they need to live, work, and play in Utah’s Capital City,” said Mayor
Jackie Biskupski on the announcement. “For many people, the City’s web
presence is the primary way they will interact with city government, so
we wanted to create a space which was accessible to all, service
oriented, and of course, easy to use.”

With nearly half of users accessing the City’s site via a mobile device,
the redesign team focused efforts on building a mobile friendly site as
well as improving accessibility. The new site was tested for ADA
compliance utilizing independent accessibility audit tools including
WebAim and Functional Accessibility Evaluator 2.0. In April, the site
scored nearly 100% when tested using Google’s Accessibility Auditor.

Additional improvements include a cleaner look, and a prioritization of
service-oriented functions like bill pay, service request, employment
opportunities, and permit and licensing information.

“We didn’t want to simply move all the information from one site to
another, we wanted to simplify and improve the content we presented to
residents,” said David Bier, Communications and Content Manager who
helped lead the project for the Mayor’s Office. “Every City department
and agency redesigned their sites to ensure what we called ‘service
tasks’ were most prominently displayed.”

The City’s last major web redesign was completed in 2011. Since that
time, many City departments and agencies, including the City Council and
Mayor’s Office, created their own external sites in order to provide a
better online experience for users.

“What is great about this new site is that nearly every department has
created a presence on SLC.gov,”
said Randi Park, Technology Solutions Manager for IMS, who led the
overall redesign project. “This improves our search capability and
allows for greater data and content integrity.”

The new SLC.gov is
only one part of a greater effort by the City to improve the service
function of City government. Earlier this month the City announced that
permit waiting times had been cut in half between fiscal year 2015 and
2017, through a modification of software to allow permits from six
different departments to be processed concurrently, and two additional
staff to review plans. In early 2017, the City also launched an online
parking and civil citation hearing portal to allow individuals who have
received citations to appeal online. Since that time, nearly 60% of all
hearings are done online, with 90% of individuals able to resolve
situations in one day.

“We are not nearly done with this work to improve our systems,” said
Greg Daly, Director of the City’s IMS Department. “We are currently
working with many city departments to streamline technology, including
our constituent relationship management system so residents’ requests
can be resolved faster.”

Utah.gov is the entry point to over 1,000 online services and benefits
over 2.7 million residents in the state of Utah. Utah.gov provides
citizens and businesses with more convenient options for interacting
with government. Through Utah.gov, citizens can find public meetings,
renew their vehicle registration, buy a hunting and fishing license,
register a business, find a transparent state budget, and much more. In
2015 alone, Utah.gov received 21 awards making it the nation’s most
honored state website. Utah.gov is managed and operated through a
public-private partnership between the state and Utah Interactive, the
Salt Lake City-based official digital government partner for the state
of Utah. Utah Interactive is part of firm NIC’s family of companies.

About NIC

NIC Inc. (Nasdaq: EGOV) is the nation’s premier provider of innovative
digital government solutions and secure payment processing, which help
make government interactions more accessible for everyone through
technology. The family of NIC companies has developed a library of more
than 13,000 digital government services for more than 5,500 federal,
state, and local government agencies. Among these solutions is the
ground-breaking personal assistant for government, Gov2Go, delivering
citizens personalized reminders and a single platform for all government
interactions. More information is available at www.egov.com.